


Just Do What You Have To

by Conatum



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team (TV), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: Character Analysis, Character Study, Gen, I just love him a lot okay?, Monologue, its more set up like a monolouge, no one really ever goes that deep into him, so this is kind of my headcannons all rolled into one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:30:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Conatum/pseuds/Conatum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A character analysis/monologue of H. M. Murdock</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Do What You Have To

“Have you ever been locked in a two by two wooden pen before? No, no that was a stupid question, of course you haven’t. I’m glad you haven’t, don’t rush to do it. I mean, I was lucky, six and a bit weeks, really, some guys had been there for three, four months. The guy who was next to me, he died four days after I got there, they removed him two days later. 

“I took to singing, just to annoy them, the captors, that is, not the captives like me. The captors, they weren’t allowed to kill me; I could understand that much of their language. So I sang, I did funny voices, I tried to keep the other guys alive. Whole bunch of shit that did.” Murdock paused, laughing, no humor behind it. “There as one point, I hadn’t had water in four days, and one of the soldiers, walked up to the cage, and hit me on the side of the head. He laughed and said, ‘sing pretty American boy, sing.’ So I sang. Mostly Italian opera, some German or French one too, as much as I could remember. It sounded terrible, all dry and cracked, but it annoyed the hell out of him when I wouldn’t stop. Every time he’d hit me I’d just sing louder. When they found the camp and got us out, apparently I was still singing in the hospital. They commissioned me to the ward. I went back to flying before I should have been released, actually. I didn’t have any relapses until right after the job with A-Team, right before their trial. I knew the police would be watching me so I got out of trial the only way I knew how. It was unintentional, but to my benefit in the end.”

He stopped, looking down at his hands. It was a minute before he spoke again. “When I was younger and living on the farm with my uncle, I flew the crop duster. Mom died when I was five, dad was, well, absent, let’s just say, and so I lived with my uncle. To pay of my end, by the time I got old enough, I flew the crop duster for all the farms around the area. I flew it to school one day, but the teachers got mad at me.” He chuckled at the memory. “School, school was good. I wasn’t the best student, I kept getting distracted, you know? Looking out the window, stuff like that. I kept imagining flying. All my teachers yelled at me, saying that they didn’t get me, I was smart, why wasn’t I paying attention? It was hilarious, because when I looked at a page, in a book, and really concentrated really hard, I could remember it. It was a little camera in my brain. I didn’t need to pay attention; I’d just stare at a page until I could see it, than flip back during a test. It annoyed the Hell out of my friends, let me tell you that.  
“And languages were great. I don’t know why, my uncle said my mother was good with languages too, but I really don’t remember for myself. But I was pretty good. I watched a lot of TV, as I was growing up. I remembered every accent to every character I could, I listened for languages to copy on my favorite programs. It was better, for me to learn that way. Sure, I could remember the glossary for Spanish, just snap shot the vocabulary for French, but it was so much more exciting to be able to connect those words to faces.” He shifted, taking a sip of water before continuing.

“Then, the older I got, the more flying meant to me. We lived near where the Thunderbirds used to practice. Once, I nipped a plane, from their garage. I flew, right behind them, for twenty, maybe thirty seconds. And it was magical. When they landed me, they were gonna cart me off to jail, but one of the pilots said if he can fly a plane that good, who cares if he nipped it, and with-drew all charges. He taught me how to fly, you know. I even got to fly with the Thunderbirds for a couple gigs now and then. I graduated early, and joined the army air force as soon as possible because of those guys.”

His smile faded again. “I just wanted to fly, ya know? And when I went to Nam, I thought hey, what’s the worst that could happen?” His throat closed around the words he was trying to say. “I’d be carrying my friends to their graves and their bodies back home with me. I’d jump out of my chopper to get the wounded. I’d get awards for stupidity, sheer utter stupidity. I’d try to distract people using voices, accents, scenes from movies and TV, I remembered all the ones from my child hood. Those shows and languages that got me an A in school and did shit for me anywhere else. They just weren’t enough.

“There was one night, I went to check on B.A., because he didn’t seem right, coming back. And I sat next to him, and he had never liked my gibbering, sometimes found it funny, but mostly just groaned. But I sat next to him, and look over, and he had tears running down his cheeks. I had seen guys break before, but, seeing a guy, like B.A., it was terrifying. He was the unmovable, unfeeling force that drove us. And he was just sitting there, crying. I sat down next him, and he said to me I remember he just sounded so lost, ’17.’ He said, ‘He was 17.’ 

“It was Tim. He was talking ‘bout Tim, died in my chopper earlier that night, lost most of his leg and right arm. So I wrapped my arm around him, and held him, and B.A. just cried. Singing and joking wasn’t enough. But I did what I could. Still do. I’m afraid, if I ever stop making them smile, they won’t any more. They’ll get nightmares, like me. They’ll see the bodies piled in the back; they’ll see the guys who just sit next to you in the ward, crying and screaming, strapped down to beds. In my dreams, all I hear the shouts: ‘leave him, Murdock, get in your chopper, get them out, leave him!’ 

Murdock took a deep breath, voice thin and tight. “And sometimes, in those dreams, I hear nothing. Just static. Once, I was in a bombing mission, and our location was blown. And one by one, the other birds were shot down. And I tried to contact any one, anyone who was out there, and nobody was. I was all alone, flying through enemy territory. And that terrified me, more than the bombs and the shooting. That I was alone. So I started singing and talking to myself to hide the fact in the back of my head that every single man in that unit had just been killed.” He stopped, but smiled, tears still in his eyes, and as he shrugged, simply said,

“Sometimes, you just do what you have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> So he is definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, and I hope I did justice to him. There are some head cannons in there. I personally am a fan of the theory that he's not crazy, or not quite as crazy as he seems. He is most certainly smarter than other characters give him credit for. I wanted to sort of tie in the more serious notes of these characters, and what they represent. So yeah, as always feedback is lovely, and I will hopefully try to upload more soon! Bye!


End file.
